Islam and Pluralism
A comprehensive look at Jewish life in TurkeyIn 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain gave all the Jews in their empire a choice: become Christians or flee the country. Almost all of them fled, and most of them fled to the young Ottoman empire, "where everyone lives in peace under the shade of his vine or his fig-tree," as the rabbi of Edirne rapturously told his fellow-Jews. Sultan Beyazid invited them to come, greedy for their knowledge and their skills, and it wasn't long before the Jews of the Ottoman Empire were the most prosperous in the whole diaspora.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Jews made up the majority of the population in Salonica; the Istanbul district of Balat was home to Europe's largest Jewish community. Twenty thousand Sephardim still live in Istanbul; a hundred years ago there were ten times as many in the whole country. They are the guardians of a language which they brought from their homeland. If one pays attention, one can still hear it: in the summer, on the Princes' Islands, or in the cafés on the banks of the Bosporus, where elderly ladies meet for tea and a game of cards, all of a sudden switching from Turkish into that strangely moving Spanish which they have preserved from the Middle Ages and which they call Ladino. And still there are young Turks who know nothing of all this.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Jews made up the majority of the population in Salonica; the Istanbul district of Balat was home to Europe's largest Jewish community. Twenty thousand Sephardim still live in Istanbul; a hundred years ago there were ten times as many in the whole country. They are the guardians of a language which they brought from their homeland. If one pays attention, one can still hear it: in the summer, on the Princes' Islands, or in the cafés on the banks of the Bosporus, where elderly ladies meet for tea and a game of cards, all of a sudden switching from Turkish into that strangely moving Spanish which they have preserved from the Middle Ages and which they call Ladino. And still there are young Turks who know nothing of all this.
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9:41 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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